Keep on keepin on

Everything has been flowing along great, cravings are minimal and I haven't been cheating AT ALL! It feels good. I've been very conscious of sugar and how I'm pairing my meals. Breakfast is an egg-fest, lunch is protein focused with a bit of fat via avocado and carbs from an apple. An aside: I found some amazing Jonogolds at Costco this week! Dinner has been a quick fix post workout or while rushing to rehearsal: 3 cheers for PaleoKits. I just ordered some more and they are offering a 15% discount through January 31,2011 with the coupon code "PALEONEWYEAR"

I hope to try out some new recipes this weekend. Until then, enjoy the humor:

http://drywallcrossfit.blogspot.com/

Breakfast of Champions

J and I discovered a Hampton Roads gem on Sunday: the Country Butcher Shop & Deli (http://countrybutchershopanddeli.com/index.html). These guys are so welcoming and happy to chat with you about their meat all day. The beef is grass-fed, grain-finished and the pork is free-range. They have farm fresh eggs available and a freezer full of exotic meat selections including kangaroo and ostrich! Looking for duck fat? This is the place to get it. I was akin to a kid in a candy store.
This morning's breakfast was a quick fry up of "Johnny Earl's HOT sage sausage" from CBSD and a couple organic eggs. It was so yummy, the difference in meat quality is undeniable. I feel great, quite fueled up for the day until lunch roles around. A trip back to these guys is a must. Fun fact: CBSD is featured on Food Inc.

My next meatsploration will be to Full Quiver Farm (http://www.fullquiverfarm.com/) Check out their "Natural Farming" page if you're still unconvinced that how your meat is raised doesn't matter.

Sniffle Cough Sneeze

Looks like running around 24/7 has caught up with me as I've been a shut-in all weekend with one helluva cold. The most frustrating aspect has been 1) I've missed out on WODs and 2)What do you eat when you have a cold and need to stay Paleo? WHen it was just a sore throat I was urging for soft foods like pudding or a fudge sickle. Anything that would let me perpetually suck on it -ignore the TWSS moment here- So that was a bit of a challenge. I went to buy throat losenges and those babies are loaded with sugar! Ended up grabbing some Ricola SF ones, but they are filled with maltodextrin and similar faux-sugar evils. What to do though? Now that this little bug has gone full-blow I'd usually resort to ramen or chicken noodle soup. But technically the high sodium content (and massive carb load) are out. Usually I'm just uncomfy when sick but this time around my energy is zapped so making my own soup was not happening. I ended up doing a lot of "breakfast for breakfast, lunch and dinner." Turkey sausage and egg whites just appealed to me for some reason. Now that it's Monday I will be having a Paleokit for lunch and dinner is anyone's guess. I threw a whey protein packet in my gym bag. I've been doing a good job of avoiding dairy but it seems the lesser of two evils right now until I get my energy back and hit up the kitchen.
How ironic that I should get sick just as I get back to CF, start taking vitamins and I'm eating so clean!

A little bit of everything

Came home late tonight hungry and directionless. What followed was the frying of some (3 strips) bacon along w a leftover chicken breast I'd baked up on Monday night. After that I was satisfied enough to play.
First up was a shortcut version of a yummy "fried rice" recipe. I pulverized cauliflower then sauteed it in the bacon fat along w a bit of garlic powder and cayenne. Pretty tasty stuff, similar to my Aunt's yummy Southern cabbage but with a very fun consistency. Can't wait to polish it off tomorrow.
After that I tried my first ever Paleo smoothie: 2 cups of organic spinach, one very ripe banana and 1/2 cup coconut milk in the blender...AWESOME! Could not believe how great it tasted and was a perfect use of the miscellaneous items I had been ignoring in my fridge.
Looking forward to chowing down on these items tomorrow~*

Girl's Night In

Recently some of my ridiculously awesome lady pals and I convened for a night of good food and very good times. I brought along a recipe from Health-Bent: Pumpkin Chili with Orange, Coriander Avocado Creme. It was woot sauce, an utter spice explosion that was enhanced wonderfully by the avocado based "creme." Another friend brought Rockfish she had just caught (could it get any more cavewoman?!?) and served up crazy awesome fish tacos w/ homemade pico de gallo and other fresh fixins. I simply skipped the tortilla and piled the seasoned fish fillets up with all of the other accoutrements. Superb supper~*

On Wednesdays we wear Pink

This is usually one of my busier days and this week is no exception. Monday and Tuesday about ran me ragged so upon waking up this morning the sudden realization that I needed 2 on-the-go meals was a momentary quandary. My successful solution is what you see above: for lunch at work and dinner in the car before rehearsal I grabbed some delicious turkey jerky from Fresh Market (their bison jerky is also fantastic), an apple, a sweet potato and the leftovers from last night's dinner-out to take advantage of our area's restaurant week. It's a NY Strip steak encrusted in peppercorns. We ate at Waterman's *shout out* and the tasting menu was fantastic. Mom and I started with prosciutto wrapped shrimp w/ a chipotle aioli as an appetizer before the arrival of my colossal steak. Which brings me back to the awesomeness of today's lunch. Leftover steak and the sweet potato which I popped in the office microwave then sprinkled w/ some pumpkin pie spice and a smidgen of honey. My apple was given to a hungry cohort while I snacked on some nuts from my desk drawer for the mid-afternoon snack. Can't wait to tear into that jerky tonight. 2 meals that took a total of 2 minutes to prep, that's how I like it!

Deliciousness

Jeffrey chose lamb as the meat of the week! He picked out some lamb tips at TJ's. They cooked up so quickly and were positively delicious. Normally i'm not a lamb inclined lady, but this was fantastic. He paired it with my favorite side dish: "cauliflower polenta" and some green beans with mushrooms, zuchinnis and artichokes all cooked in the juice of the meat. Huzzah <3 Simple and amazing

Gotta go grab tomorrow's lunch out of the oven: chicken breast glazed with the Son of Grok's primal BBQ sauce (recipe in an earlier post)

Cheater Cheater Pumpkin Eater, wait...pumpkins are Paleo approved

Full on cheat day. We're talking no holds barred. Tomorrow it's business as usual~*

Cookbook on the Cheap

Invested a few, okay 30, minutes today surfing the blogosphere for various paleo recipes that looked yummy and doable. So often I see these fantastic recipes that look brilliant but realistically I am short on time and supplies most weekdays. Therefore I specifically selected menus where I was likely to have the ingredients and could whip it up fairly quickly. Printed them out and filed all away in a 3-ring binder! Many thanks to Jen's Gone Paleo and Health-Bent for being especially contributive.

Eating on the Run

Every meal I ate today was not of my own making. Woke up at the parent's house and made a quick breakfast of their Sunday fried chicken (which is not heavily battered but rather skinless breasts w a thin coating that mostly falls off). Will admit to sampling part of a biscuit w/ Grandma's famous strawberry jelly, happy to report that it wasn't that appealing.

Lunch was out with my bestest best friend and her hubby. We met at Panera so I had the Fuji Apple Salad w/ Chicken. The only downside is that the dressing contains soybean oil and sugar. But it wasn't too heavily dressed and the salad was a delicious, super-filling treat.

Jeffrey and I made spur of the moment dinner plans. We circled the wagons at Chipotle which I consider to be fast-food Paleo heaven. A burrito bowl w/ no rice or beans but rather the fajita veggies made up the base. Then some delicious spicy barbacoa (shredded beef) and the mild tomato salsa w/ a dab of sour cream to counter the spiciness. I nabbed some of J's guacamole to top it all off. Yummy, filling and guiltless. It's been a fantastic Monday~*

1.1.11

Happy New Year!


Making resolutions may seem cliche but setting goals and establishing firm commitments to one's health is never passe. Don't overwhelm yourself with huge goals, break it up into doable, conquerable, tasks.

I'm committing to finishing up my weight loss goals in 2011 so that 2012's to-do's will not include "weight loss." Body conditioning maybe, but not weight loss -->FREEDOM<--

No need to wish ourselves good luck on this but rather happy journey~*